Labor Relations and Collective Bargaining - Research Paper Example

However, the health sector is more sensitive. Lives are lost when the doctors and nurses resort to industrial action. There is a lot to be said on whether it is morally right for people whose profession is to save people’s lives to be on strike. This is attributed to the fact that when they do so, they put the same lives in jeopardy (Olin, 2012). However, it must be admitted that when such a time comes, decisions have to be made by the management. The person who normally is at the sharp end of decision making at such times is the Human Resource Director.

This paper shall seek to explore the alternatives available to the Human Resource director in the case that nurses at their hospital make the decision to become unionized. At the sound of it, unionization of nurses at several levels sounds like a paradox. This is because at the end of their training, they take the Hippocratic Oath which envisions a workplace where the medical service providers are to be more concerned about the well-being of their clients, more than their own. Therefore, nurses are categorized under what might be labeled as essential services.

They are not expected to withdraw their services because of industrial action. However, in today’s world, pragmatism has to prevail. If the nurses fail to get what they expect they might not in turn offer the best care that their profession is intended to offer. Thus, in a way good healthcare begins with making the nurses happy, rather than the patients. This is because happy nurses will provide better services which might possibly result in better healthcare (Olin, 2012). The other important thing to note is that as much as unionization is a huge disruption to the provision of services, it is within the rights of the workers to resort to such action in the event that their grievances are not being listened to.

As a Human Resource Director, the acceptance of that fact is a huge step in the